San Francisco was one of the nation’s best cities for pay increases last quarter, Seattle-based PayScale reported Wednesday. Two other California cities also saw growth.

Nationwide, pay was up 0.5 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, PayScale reported. But pay rose by much more in some metro areas, while falling in others.

“Our results show the economy is on a steady, but very tepid recovery with wage growth rising at a slow rate,” Katie Bardaro, PayScale’s lead economist, said in the report. “We anticipate the trend of sluggish overall wage growth to continue in 2014 with a few industries such as science, biotech, and healthcare showing periodic gains that are more significant. “